The present invention relates to a machine for vending newspapers, magazines or similar material automatically in response to insertion of a coin into an associated coin operated control mechanism.
Conventional coin operated newspaper vending machines have a locked access door which is openable in response to insertion of a coin into a coin operated control mechanism. Opening of the access door provides the user with access to the entire stack of newspapers. To avoid loss through users who take more than one paper after paying for only one, machines which discharge one newspaper or magazine at a time were developed. One such device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,662,329 issued to Peterson utilizes a gravity operated conveyor and a plurality of upwardly projecting pins to move a vertical stack of papers forwardly and downwardly towards an abutment. A hand operated crank and lever mechanism picks up the folded edge of the leading newspaper and drops it into a tray. No mechanism is provided for relieving the pressure of the preceding newspapers during operation of the crank so that for thin newspapers in can happen that two will be discharged rather than one. In addition, the conveyor is subject to jamming and binding since it is merely gravity operated.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,104,781 issued to Clift utilizes a cam operated bevelled flange and a set of needles to eject the leading newspaper from a vertical stack of newspapers. The newspapers are subject to tearing of their folded edge by the needles during release. In addition, the flange mechanism has no means of adjustment to adapt to varying thicknesses of newspapers.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,396,411 issued to Cameron illustrates the use of a plurality of arms fixedly attached to a rotatable shaft and movable through notches in an inclined newspaper support plate.
Arcuate portions of the arms behind recessed faces thereon are used to keep the succeeding papers from advancing during forward rotation of the arms and return movement thereof. Cameron preferably employs needle points at the end of the arms to ensure a positive grip on the leading paper. With the needle points the Cameron device requires critical adjustment to newspaper thickness in order to avoid scraping and tearing the second frontmost newspaper as proper operation requires the arm and needles to be inserted precisely between the latter newspaper and the frontmost one. Moreover, a relatively small deviation in adjustment can result in the discharge of two newspapers rather than one with or without the needle points.
A more important problem with using arcuate portions to restrain succeeding newspapers arises when large stacks of thin newspapers are in place. In the latter case, the pressure on the front papers in the stack results in the arcuate arm picking up more than one newspaper. Additionally with freshly printed limp newspapers the sloping shoulder used by Cameron to stop forward movement of the newspapers causes the front one to buckle frontwardly and become jammed upon lifting by the arm.